Not for the first time this season, Rubens Barrichello has found himself on the wrong end of an incident involving former team-mate Michael Schumacher.

Barrichello found himself held up by Schumacher's Mercedes in Q2 and despite making it through to Q3 was still frustrated by events.

"I don't want it to become very personal," Barrichello told the BBC afterwards. "We had problems in the past, we still have problems in some situations like in Hungary. I am a down-to-earth guy, a very cool guy, which means I have a lot of respect even for the slowest cars and to the quickest ones. So we all make mistakes and we are allowed to make a mistake and to apologise.

"He just came to apologise in a way that the team didn't tell him [I was there], but I was on a fast lap and you know you have mirrors and you have everything and you cannot count on everything from the team. I am a little bit sad about the situation because it is only luck that I passed on to Q3 because he really slowed me down."

Schumacher said that he had not intended to hold Barrichello up and simply assumed he was preparing for a flying lap.

"The team keep me informed who is pushing, who is on flying laps, he was behind me, but I hadn't been informed, so I assumed he was on a preparing lap just as I was. Sorry if I held him up, it wasn't meant to be," said Schumacher.

Afterwards, stewards reprimanded Schumacher, saying that, "irrespective of the Mercedes team's opinion that car nine (Barrichello) was not on a 'fast lap', it is ultimately the driver's responsibility to be conscious of closing cars via the use of mirrors and blue flags/lights."

To add further spice to what is bound to be an intriguing race, Barrichello will line up alongside Schumacher on the fifth row of the grid after qualifying tenth.